Ok, this had me in stitches

From Patriot-boy. Read the rest of this post...

Bush Launches Broadside Against 'Pessimist' Edwards

"President Bush on Friday called Democrat John Edwards a pessimist on the economy"

This from a guy who talked the entire country into a recession during his campaign and his first year in office. Read the rest of this post...

I do wish Senator Santorum would stop writing us...

From: "Tom Algier"
Subject: Gay Marriage? What's next?
Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2004 09:46:37 -0500

So what if our entire nation was made up of homosexuals? How long would it take before we die off because they can't produce any children? How great would the USA be then? It's sad to see this development in our culture in America.

I guess if marrying the same sex is OK, then how about if we marry cows or even pigs? They have penises and vaginas, too! Why don't we just legalize every kind of relationship between living things and create laws to give them rights such as health care for the spouse (a sheep). I'm sure the veterinarians would like it. Oh, yeah, I forgot that they'd be dying off in a generation or two. So who will take care of the aging (with AIDS most likely)?

Will we become a nation of spineless liberals who'll let the world dictate how our society works?

Read the rest of this post...

Bush thinks Islam sucks

I have half a mind to believe the White House leaked this story to show the American Taliban that he was still their boy, come this November:

Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, says he is concerned about the growth of the Muslim faith in the United States. But he emphasizes he is not concerned about President Bush's frequent references to Islam as a 'religion of peace' that has simply been hijacked by a radical fringe.

'I can say with certainty that [the president] knows what the real score is,' Weyrich says. 'He feels he has to say these things -- and maybe if you and I were president, we'd have to do the same thing.'

Weyrich says if the president actually declared that America is in a war against Islam, there might be more Muslims taking up arms against the U.S. -- a 'real jihad,' as he puts it. So Bush, according to Weyrich, is soft-peddling his rhetoric in order to 'tamp down' any worldwide activity that might occur.

'I know the president has to say certain things -- and I understand that,' the conservative icon says, 'but I also know that he doesn't believe it.'

Funny, but I think Bush already instigated that "real jihad." Read the rest of this post...

War rationale based on CIA error, but Bush today is still using that rationale

The only useful thing about having a complete idiot as president is that he continues to make the same mistakes over and over again.

To wit: this new Senate Intell Committee report claiming that the CIA misled the White House. Putting aside for a minute whether we should even believe this report, and whether the White House pressured the CIA in the first place to provide trumped up evidence, and whether the White House trumped up the evidence even more once it received it, note that Bush responds to the report by reiterating THE SAME NOW-PROVED-FAULTY EVIDENCE. What kind of a moron responds to a report that concludes "they lied to you, sir," by then REPEATING THE LIES?

AP:

The CIA has not repaired ingrained problems that led it to provide false information and conclusions that the Bush administration used to justify last year's invasion of Iraq, the Senate Intelligence Committee said Friday....

Bush called the report a useful accounting of intelligence agencies' shortcomings. He defended the decision to go to war, however, as well as his prewar assertions about Saddam's government and weapons of mass destruction.

'We haven't found the stockpiles, but we knew he could make them,' Bush said during a campaign stop Friday in Kutztown, Pa. 'The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.'

Yeah, you should be the last person talking about who the world is better of with out of power. Read the rest of this post...

Why an outing campaign is necessary, Part I

Regarding passage of an anti-gay constitutional amendment next week, Senator Wayne Allard (R-WY), the chief sponsor of the legislation in the Senate (who has gay staff, mind you), told Reuters the following:

"We may not get the votes we need the first year, but this is not viewed a one year project," Allard said. "We're going to work at it."

That, my friends, is why winning next week's vote is not enough of a strategy. They're going to keep trying, year after year, until they win this vote - either because the Sup Ct overturns DOMA and everyone freaks out, or because they're able to elect an anti-gay supermajority to the Congress (with the help of our self-hating gay LGBT friends - ok, probably not any Ts, as I doubt the anti-gays are gonna tolerate them, even Ts willing to turn on their own community) - and just wait and see what happens. They'll pass that amendment in a flash.

What needs to happen is that we create a new environment in this country in which legislative gaybashing is NOT OK. In which legislative gaybashing is so costly a prospect - because you know that as a community we're gonna kick your ass - that no politician ever considers it again.

That's what an outing campaign is about. And that's why such a campaign is necessary. To date, nothing we've done has even vaguely convinced anti-gays in Congress and the White House that proposing an anti-gay constitutional amendment is too costly a prospect. Read the rest of this post...

Bush Military Records Destroyed: The Sequel

John, here's a more complete article from the New York Times about the Pentagon's claim that the dog ate their homework...and crucial Bush military records are gone forever. It quotes people on every side who are astonished to find out at this late stage that documents covering three months of the disputed "Where's Waldo?" period for Bush in 1972 were allegedly destroyed years ago. And still the White House refuses to release reams of documents about Bush's tour of duty (or should that be doody?). Read the rest of this post...

Pentagon: Bush National Guard records destroyed

I cannot fucking believe this. What the hell country do we live in?

MSNBC:

Military payroll records that could more fully document President Bush's whereabouts during his service in the Texas Air National Guard were inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

Read the rest of this post...

Gay Senate staff association run by apologist

Is it any surprise that gay and lesbians working for anti-gay members of Congress see nothing wrong with what they're doing when the guy running the gay and lesbian Senate staff association is just as screwed up as they are.

Get a load of this interview he did in today's Gay City News. In it, the staffer, Lynden Armstrong, who works for Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), WHO SUPPORTS THE AMENDMENT, justifies how he can, with a good conscience, help keep a legislative gay-basher in office. The quotes are classic closet case, but what's particularly galling, of course, is that Armstrong isn't a closet case at all. He's out and he's proud, yet still he says things that would make a closeted self-loathing homosexual proud. To wit:

- My boss doesn't really hate me, it's the voters who want him to throw me into a concentration camp, he's just doing it to make them happy - so no hard feelings, okay?

- I don't always agree with my boss about whether I'm 3/5ths a man, but that's okay, we just agree to disagree.

- It's just my opinion that I'm not a second-class citizen, I don't have a right to impose that view on my office.

- My job is to support the senator, and I'll be a good little German.

Earth to Armstrong: Why the hell do you CHOOSE to work for this man at all?

Gay City News: "Although Armstrong has not been subjected to this tactic - he came out to Domenici and colleagues in 1997 - he's in the position of being a gay man who works for a senator supporting the FMA, and said he understands the pressure some gay staffers, including himself, feel as the measure nears a vote in the Senate next week.

"I have to keep in mind [Domenici] isn't personally against me or gay people," Armstrong said. "I don't always agree with him, but he has to answer to his constituents. He has to do what he was elected to do which is represent his constituents in New Mexico. If you look at the polls, overwhelmingly in New Mexico they are in support of FMA."....

“My office knows how I feel about these issues, but it’s how I feel personally and it’s not my opinion as a professional on the Hill, “ said Armstrong. “My job is to support the Senator as he represents New Mexico.”

Armstrong said that despite the national importance of the amendment proposal, much of his work is about addressing the more mundane issues of constituent services.

“We are doing a lot of good things for the people of New Mexico,” said Armstrong, who expressed a strong loyalty to his boss. “Running the office helps the senator further his goals for New Mexico residents.”

Call me crazy, Lynden, but I'll bet there are a more than a few gay and lesbian New Mexicans who don't think your boss' vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment is a "good thing." Read the rest of this post...

Ex-Army reservist files lawsuit to avoid recall

He's claiming that he was not informed that he had to resign in order to be removed from active reserves. This will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Read the rest of this post...

Some movie theater chains refuse to carry F-911

Censorship is alive and well in the heartland. Meanwhile here in Paris, friends grabbed the last few seats last night in a packed house in one of the larger theaters on the Champs Elysees. Oh that's right, we're all communists here. Read the rest of this post...

Michigan GOP gathering signatures for Nader

More democracy in action. Funny to see that they claim to want choice on something.

"Greg McNeilly of the state Republican Party said the GOP is doing nothing wrong and hopes Nader will draw votes from the Democratic candidate. Republicans will make sure Nader has more than the 30,000 valid signatures he needs by July 15 to qualify for the Michigan ballot, McNeilly said.

"Unlike the Democratic Party, where 'D' stands for disenfranchisement, we want voters to have choices," he said."

Read the rest of this post...

Wash Blade interviewed "outed" staffer - who was out already anyway

The thing is, every time I feel the least built of pity for these gay staffers working for anti-gay members, they go and make these ridiculously evil statements that show how screwed up they really are. The Washington Blade interviews the first Hill staffer outed, though he wasn't really outed since he did proclaim his gayness as the centerfold in a DC gay publication 3 years ago.

Read the interview, if you can stomach it.

It's not my style to broadcast my sexual orientation, says the staffer who posed as a shirtless CENTERFOLD in a gay magazine. And all the anger focused at him is simply because he's a Republican, he claims, and not because he's working for freaking Jim Inhofe, a man who's anti-gay politics would put Jesse Helms to shame, a man who proudly ran for election on a platform of "God, gays and guns." The really troubling thing is that this is exactly same thing the other "outed" staffer said the other day - they hate me because I'm a Republican. He also said the same line you hear from other gays who work against the community - being gay is only a PART of who I am. These guys just don't get it.

One more thing, semi-closeted Congressman Mark Foley's (R-FL) former chief of staff Kirk Fordham says in the article that he never spoke with me about his former boss' being gay. That's an outright lie. I've been friends with Kirk for going on ten years now, and he's confirmed Foley's sexual orientation numerous times to me and to many many others. it's not clear why Kirk, and Foley, keep trying to obscure the congressman's sexual orientation - he's out, get over it.

Washington Blade Online:

"My bottom line is that I've never tried to hide who I am, but it isn't my style to broadcast my sexual orientation with klieg lights," [Jonathan] Tolman said. "I am getting the impression that they intend to make this as painful as possible for me simply because I am a Republican and I work for one.

"But I give my boss advice on environmental issues, not social issues. If he would ask me [about the Federal Marriage Amendment], I would say, "Don't vote for that Jim," but he hasn't."

Earth to Jonathan: Your boss would never ask your advice on the Marriage Amendment because HE ISSUED A WRITTEN STATEMENT SAYING HE'D FIRE ANY OPENLY GAY MEN WORKING ON HIS PERSONAL STAFF. Get a clue. Read the rest of this post...

New terror alert becoming clearer now - House leaves Patriot Act alone

Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, blah, blah, blah...be very afraid.

House Republicans used an extra-long vote to derail a drive to weaken the USA Patriot Act, handing a campaign-season victory to President Bush and angering Democrats and GOP conservatives who led the unsuccessful effort.

"You win some, and some get stolen," said conservative Rep. C.L. Butch Otter, R-Idaho.

He was a lead sponsor of the provision that would have prevented authorities from using the anti-terrorism law to demand information on book buyers and library users.

"We are all in that together," Sanders, one of Congress' most liberal lawmakers, said of the anti-terror effort. "In the fight against terrorism, we've got to keep our eyes on two prizes: the terrorists and the United States Constitution."

Read the rest of this post...

Arch-villain Chirac addresses racism, hatred, homophobia

The man that the Bushies love to hate is speaking out against "odious and disgraceful acts of hatred dirty our country" as France struggles with another rising tide of hate crimes. I may have issues with some of his policies but he's not the evil character that the Bushies like to portray. I think there needs to be more to the policies but I applaud his effort to raise the issue and bring the country together to fight the ugliness of hatred. What ever happened to our uniter?

"Discrimination, anti-Semitism, racism - all kinds of racism are spreading insidiously," M. Chirac said. "A France, true to its history, its roots and its culture, is a France capable of better, a France which rejects selfishness, exclusion and discrimination. That is the France I believe in."

Read the rest of this post...

WASH POST: Gay Rights Site Runs 'Outing' Ad Aimed at the Hill

Our new ad, in today's Washington Blade, got us an article in today's Washington Post. Excellent. Read the rest of this post...

Scientists Say White House Questioned Their Politics

It's all simply numbing at this point.

NYT: In a report released yesterday, a scientific advocacy group cited more instances of what it called the Bush administration's manipulation of science to fit its policy goals, including the questioning of nominees to scientific advisory panels about whether they had voted for President Bush.

Read the rest of this post...

GOP donors funding Nader

Tom Ridge got it wrong. It's not Osama, it's George Bush and his wealthy Republican cronies who are trying to disrupt our democracy. Read the rest of this post...